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How Niemi's relief appearance nearly turned Stars' game around: 'It really wasn't (Lehtonen's) night'

Antti Niemi was walking back to the dressing room after the first intermission of the Stars' 4-3 overtime loss to the Blues when Stars coach Lindy Ruff gave him the news.

The Stars trailed 3-1 at that point. Kari Lehtonen had allowed three goals on five shots. Niemi was going in.

"It really wasn't [Lehtonen's] night," Ruff said after the game. "I felt that he was off."

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Thirty-five seconds after the Stars opened the scoring in the game, Lehtonen allowed a Patrik Berglund slapshot from just above the right faceoff dot to beat him on the far side. Less than three minutes later, Blues defenseman Joel Edmundson sneaked down behind the Stars' defense and scored a goal on a cross-ice pass to give the Blues two goals on two shots. Later in the first, Troy Brouwer deposited a rebound past Lehtonen.

Facing a two-goal deficit despite outshooting the opposition 10-5, Ruff made the switch.

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"I was pretty confident we'd get a chance to come back," Niemi said. "I just wanted to be loose and ready to make a few saves."

Niemi turned aside every Blues shot in the second period as St. Louis outshot Dallas 10-6. The biggest save came with 13 minutes left when Troy Brouwer received a pass in front and Niemi stuck out his right pad to make a point-blank save.

He stopped two more shots in the third as the Stars roared back to force overtime.

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"Sometimes you need a goalie change like that and that can be a spark," forward Mattias Janmark said. "You don't want to do the same that you did to Kari to Antti, so he stepped up huge for us."

Niemi stopped three quality Blues scoring chances at the beginning of overtime, allowing the Stars to come up with a few scoring chances of their own.

Niemi finished with 19 saves on 20 shots. His .950 save percentage was his highest in three playoff games this year.

Lehtonen started the previous series against Minnesota, but after he allowed four goals on 24 shots in Game 3, Ruff started Niemi in Games 4 and 5, then went back to Lehtonen for the decisive Game 6.

Lehtonen now has a .906 save percentage and 2.45 goals-against average in the playoffs. Niemi has a .892 save percentage and 2.73 goals-against average.

Ruff said he'd decide Monday on which player will start Game 3 in St. Louis on Tuesday, but he said he remains committed to the two-goalie system that the team has used all season.

"There just seems a point sometimes where Kari needs a rest," Ruff said. "He plays well after that."

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Early hook

Sunday was the sixth time this season that Kari Lehtonen started a game but was pulled for being ineffective. A game-by-game look:

Twitter: @michaelflorek